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Hi Everyone!

I think my house is almost finally done! Just need final fixtures put in on monday, and final inspection. Then it's just finishing touches like painting touch ups, hanging art, figuring out the closet etc.

This week I finished:

Pollyanna - This was cute, a little twee for adult me. It was cute though, and I liked it fine. ATY childhood classic I never read before.

Storm Cursed - just for fun, i'd gone tot he library to pick up a book club book and it was checked out between the time of me looking it up and seeing it was on the shelf and going to check it out. So I grabbed this just so the trip wasn't in vain, haha. It was a fun read, I like the series.

About the Night - ATY book set in Mediterranean, and Read Harder book by a journalist. This annoyed me so much. it's not that it was poorly written, and I actually liked Lila quite a bit. But Elias annoyed me SO MUCH it just really spoiled the whole story for me. I am sick to death of "romances" where the man gets forgiven for everything because it's a love story.

Currently Reading:

Sparrow Hill Road - not sure if i'll count this or not. I'm stuck on ATY's two books on the same topic/theme or whatever. I might see if I have another ghost type book in my tbr pile, i'm guessing i do. I have a moon landing book coming up too, so I could technically count the martian + the moon book too.

QOTW:

...Ok I got nothin. Except Where did my summer go !? I swear yesterday was June 1.

I think it's been a busy week for most of us- and a busy summer, I'm not sure where mine has gone, either!

This week: hit my Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ reading goal of 50 books, and rewarded myself with promptly raising it again. I'll be interested to see where I end up at the close of the year, since so many of my books this year have been sooooo long!

Finished Salt: A World History and got another of the author's micro-histories on order at the library. A book about the social and economic history of salt had absolutely no right to be that interesting, but it definitely was, and I really enjoyed it!

Read Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal. I always enjoy May Roach's writing, and I think at this point I've read all of her stuff. Funny, informative, bold, and as usual, graphic and very TMI on a few topics. If you're interested, be ready for at least four chapters solely dedicated to the topic of flatulence. I loved it!

Started working through Spider-Gwen: Spider-Gwen, Vol. 0: Most Wanted?, and Spider-Gwen (2015) #1, which I've been curious about for awhile now. I'm definitely enjoying them, but being relatively new to the spider-verse, there is a ton of context that I don't have, that the writers assume that the reader is already in on. So far I've done okay just rolling with what's happening (and not asking too many questions), but there's obviously a lot that I'm missing. Does anyone happen to know what the recommended "on-ramp" is for getting into Gwen's story?

I can't believe summer's almost over. I think that's why we started planning our vacations for September the last few years! Extend it a little further.

This week, I finished Defy the Fates by Claudia Grey. I've mostly read her Star Wars stuff so far, and this trilogy was comparable, I thought. She has this way with YA romance and getting you invested in the characters.

And speaking of Star Wars and fate, I just finished A Crash of Fate by Zoraida Cordova today. It's one of the tie-ins to the new Galaxy's Edge theme park at Disney. I liked it well enough; it was a decent YA romance adventure taking place on Batuu, the "setting" of the theme park. I know it's just a giant ad for the place, but it's still fun.

Manga this week: I Hear the Sunspot: Limit Volume 1 and Noragami: Stray God, Vol. 7

I'm about to start a novella from another of Courtney Milan's series: The Pursuit Of.... I haven't read anything from this series, so I'm just going to dive in!

Sarah,

The book does kinda just jump in. Her official entry was during Edge of the Spiderverse part 2, from 2014 or so. I think the idea is that she was doing her thing before the multiverses crossed over, so most her story is established in flashbacks and hints as it goes along.

I love her though!

I feel like I hit pause on my life for most of August - my stepfather was hospitalized and then passed away (he was 82 and had many health issues, so it wasn't entirely unexpected) - so I rushed down to Florida on a few hours notice and stayed for two weeks with my mom. I couldn't focus on a book during that time, but I've done plenty of reading before and after to make up for it!

When I last checked in a month ago, I was reading Once & Future for IRL book club #2. I really enjoyed that one - great characters, and enough resolution that it made sense for the book to end, but still left room for the sequel.

I then finally got IRL book club #3's July selection from the library a month late (there was a local production of a play based on the same events, so I suspect that was why it was so popular), Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation. This was one of the most thoroughly researched books I've ever read - the author really went all-in, moving to New Orleans for four years to write it. So if you're a fan of well-researched non-fiction, I definitely recommend this one.

IRL book club #3's August selection was much easier to get from the library - Confessions of the Fox. I really wanted to like this one, but THE FOOTNOTES..... SO MANY FOOTNOTES. I usually am intrigued by books that use their formatting to layer in another story, but this one just didn't work for me. It was especially frustrating because the primary story was such a good one, and I think I would have really enjoyed it with a different approach.

Next up was IRL book club #1's Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. This one started out promising - a quirky cast of characters, great setting...but it just didn't live up to the premise. I read the accompanying Ajax Penumbra 1969 short story, and enjoyed it much more. Maybe the author just tried to do too much since it was his first book, so the shorter version worked better because it was more focused. It probably also didn't help that my sudden reading (and life) hiatus happened about 4/5 of the way through Mr. Penumbra - but I don't think that was the only reason it didn't fully click.

By the time I got back, it was time to start on the next month for the book clubs, starting with Deadfall for IRL book club #2. This was a very solid thriller, especially considering that it is technically in the YA category.

I then moved on to Assassination Vacation for IRL book club #3, which was awesome - I can't believe I never read any of Sarah Vowell's books before, since I love her so much on This American Life. I read the whole book in one sitting, and I definitely will be seeking out her other books in the near future.

Finally all caught up on book clubs, I picked up The Disasters, which had been sitting on my TBR pile forever. The publisher's tagline that it's The Breakfast Club in space really undersells it - it's so much more than that, with a great set of characters but also a well-plotted story.

Next in my TBR stack was Grave Mercy, which was amazing and made me want to immediately read the rest of the series. It's a similar tone to A Court of Thorns and Roses in many ways, but a completely different plot. I love everything about it (history! assassin nuns! secret plots!), so I definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn't already discovered it in a more timely manner than I did.

I'm currently reading next month's IRL book club #1 pick, Louisiana Longshot, which is a lot of fun and much more modern than the average cozy mystery. I'm almost halfway, and I'm still not 100% sure where it's headed, so that's a good sign!

Megan, sorry to hear about your stepfather. Even when these things are expected, they are still hard.

Thanks, Sheri - I know we all go through this at one time or another!

Sheri wrote: "Megan, sorry to hear about your stepfather. Even when these things are expected, they are still hard."